The big question is what "society" he is talking about? Is it the "society" that includes all people, or the "society" that includes only rich people?
Which of those did the Internet benefit?
Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
121–130 of 668 posts
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#122This shouldn't be a surprise - capitalism always overshoots. Anything worth investing in will generally receive too much investment in because very few people can tell where the line is.
And that's what causes bubbles but at this point it should be clear that AI will make a substantial impact - at least as great as the internet, likely larger
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#123Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
The biggest problem is the infrastructure left behind from the Dotcom boom that laid the path for the current world (the high speed fiber) doesn't translate to computer chips. Are you still using intel chips from 1998? And the chips are such a huge cost, and being backed by debt but they depreciate in value exponentially. It's not the same because so much of the current debt fueled spending is on an asset that has ve…
If you look at year over year chip improvements in 2025 vs 1998, it's clear that modern hardware just has a longer shelf life than it used to. The difficulties in getting more performance for the same power expenditure are just very different than back in the day. There's still depreciation, but it's not the same. Also look at other forms of hardware, like RAM, and the bonus electrical capacity being built.
In 1998 to transfer a megabyte over telephone lines was expensive and 5 years later is was almost free.
I have not seen the prices of GPUs, CPU or RAM going down, on the contrary, each day it gets more expensive.
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#125[deleted]
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
And a lot of the gains from the Dotcom boom are being paid back in negative value for the average person at this point. We have automated systems that waste our time when we need support, product features that should have a one-time-cost being turned into subscriptions, a complete usurping of the ability to distribute software or build compatible replacements, etc.. The Dotcom boom was probably good for everyone in s…
Don’t say that, you’ll hasten the Antichrist!
(For those who missed it: https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/785407/p... )
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Claude, make sure to sprinkle at least one typo in here. And no em dashes you hear?"
Faculty at the college I work for are kicking and screaming about AI and students using AI. They don't want to use new tools so they're just trying to outright ban students from using them. One smug English faculty said, "well it's not that hard. You just look for dashes in their writing." I responded with, "you know you can just tell it not to use those, right?" Blank stares. I hate it.
If you didn't write it, you don't deserve credit for it. You don't learn by outsourcing your work to a piece of software.
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#128I think most level-headed people can see this is a giant bubble which will eventually burst like the dot-com crash. And AI is technology that's hard to understand to non-technical (and even some technical) investors. But of course, every company needs to slap AI on their product now just to be seen as a viable product. Personally, I look forward to seeing the bubble burst and being left with a more rational view of A…
How is AI hard to understand when you enter a cafe and everyone is chatting with their LLM?
People have no idea how much concern there was around whether FB would ever be able to monetize social media. That company went public at $15, and nearly closed below that on IPO day.
AI is more useful than social media. This is not financial advice, but I lean more toward not a bubble.
Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#129Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits
#130The big question is what "society" he is talking about? Is it the "society" that includes all people, or the "society" that includes only rich people?
ChatGPT currently has
~ 120 to 190 million daily active users
~ 800 million weekly active users
~ 450 million to over 800 million depending on the data source and methodology.
Get a grip. Hundreds of millions of people are using it, most of them for free. I would say "society" has benefited.
This has to be peak HN.
Create the fastest growing consumer product in history.
HN anon: yes, but who will benefit?